The Industry Playbook of Manufactured Doubt

“If you are working to improve public health and the environment in Africa, you need to know what your opponents are up to,” University of Melbourne public health professor Rob Moodie writes in The Conversation.

We couldn’t agree more!

Highlights:

* “Attack legitimate science. Attack the scientific institutions and government agencies perceived to be acting against corporate interests. Withholding any data unfavourable to the corporate product. Use corporate-funded studies.”

* “Attack and intimidate scientists. Smear the enemy – for example, by calling environmentalists “watermelons” (green on the outside and red on the inside). Create enough doubt to forestall litigation and regulation. Use pejorative terms repeatedly such as “excessive” regulation, “over” regulation, “unnecessary” regulation, “nanny state,” and “health Nazis” to promote fear and disdain.”

* “Manufacture false debate and insist on balance. Create false dichotomies. Focus on corporate social responsibility. Focus on other issues as the problem, like physical activity instead of diet, for example.”

* “Frame issues in highly creative ways. Insist that the problem is very complex, thus implying it can’t have a simple solution, if any.”

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